Attach or paste to the body of email?

If an email is anything over a page, I personally prefer attachments

Send as attachments. And there's no reason you can't create a new file with fifty pages and your synopsis and send them as one.

And good luck with your submissions!

The first thing I'd do would be to go to both agent's websites and see if you can find out about their preferences. There are some agencies that are very firm about the no attachment rule. If your ten page request falls under that kind of agency, I'd paste it into an email. (I've had agents ask for me to do that before.) The fifty page thing probably makes more sense to send as an attachment.

Congrats on the two requests!

If you do paste it into the email, make sure to add whitespace. Typically, email programs don't respect the formatting you might have added via Word, so you might have to add a line between paragraphs.

cmhbob said:

If you do paste it into the email, make sure to add whitespace. Typically, email programs don't respect the formatting you might have added via Word, so you might have to add a line between paragraphs.

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I'd actually recommend against doing this. Anything you paste directly into the e-mail can easily be re-formatted to double-space in a word-processor, in a matter of seconds. If I were an agent, that is something I'd do, or, better, have an assistant do. No sane agent is going to read the thing directly in the e-mail, anyway. Keep things simple.

caw

goddessofgliese said:

I understand that you must paste the first few pages to the body of an email when you query, but what about requested material?

I went to a conference today and two agents requested material. I guess I was so excited that I forgot to ask which method they prefer (won't make that mistake again!). One agent said send 10 chapters. I imagine it would be very hard to paste 10 chapters to the body of an email. So is it safe for me to assume that I can send it in attachment? The other agent said 50 pages and a synopsis. He added, "Put the synopsis after the 50 pages. If I don't like the writing, I won't bother to read the synopsis." So does it mean that I should paste the material to the body of the email? Because if I send both in attachments, there is no such a thing as "putting the synopsis after the 50 pages". But 50 pages is a lot to paste, so I am not sure.

Your advice?

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I would assume that meant he wanted one document attached, with the synopsis pasted into the document at the end of the pages.

Requested materials can be attached. For the 50 pages + synopsis, since you are making a new 50 page doc anyway, just paste the synopsis after the end of the sample pages. But, make certain you put "Requested Materials from Such-and-Such Conference" in the header and add a line or two to the opening of your query letter to indicate that you met them at such-and-such conference and they asked to see X amount of material.

Normally, you would not attach anything, just copy/paste into the body of the email unless their guidelines said to attach files. But cold queries with attached files normally get shunted straight into the spam filter. (I only ran across two agents who wanted samples and synopsis attached to queries, so it's not the norm.) But, once materials are requested, they usually want files attached because they may or may not be reading them at their desk so it makes it easy to move the partial/full to another device.

Check their agency site to see if there are any specifications. Some agencies do ask for up to 50 pages pasted into the email, so it isn't impossible. Given the mention of putting the synopsis after the sample, I would assume they intended an email paste. Even if they allow attachments, check to see if they have a preferred document type. Most accept .doc, but I've run across a few who specify .rtf or .pdf.

Chiming in to add, because I don't see anyone else has mentioned it, the reason that unsolicited query emails prefer text in the body of the email is because just about any filetype other than a txt file can be a security risk to the receiver. At least at the point where they've requested a follow-up email you've developed enough of a rapport they think you're a real person and that it's safe to open a DOC file from you.

If their unsolicited query guidelines allow RTF, DOC, and PDF attachments in a direct email; it could be a sign the agency is new on the block.

Or that they are in England.
The first 3 chapters as a doc. attachment on a query email are the norm here.

Just to complicate things.

Laurasaurus said:

Or that they are in England.
The first 3 chapters as a doc. attachment on a query email are the norm here.

Just to complicate things.

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Since this is analogous of technology and not culture, y'all should cut that out.

https://us.norton.com/yoursecurityresource/detail.jsp?aid=feature_word

A bit too late to the party but personally, I would send them as attachments. Most agents have specific guidelines on submission on their websites, and I've never seen anyone so far requesting pages to be pasted directly into the body of the email. It might also mess with your formatting, so sending as attachments seems like the better option. Could you perhaps send them an email first to ask about it?

Gale Haut said:

Since this is analogous of technology and not culture, y'all should cut that out.

https://us.norton.com/yoursecurityresource/detail.jsp?aid=feature_word

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I'll inform the entirety of England to get on that, as per your request.

Laurasaurus said:

I'll inform the entirety of England to get on that, as per your request.

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Thanks. That would be swell.

As always, do what the agent says to do in their submission guidelines. A few months ago I read them for over 200 agents. Most said post inline, a very few said send an attachment and specified in what format (usually .rtf). My field is sci-fi/fantasy. Agents for other genres may be different.